A common tool for transporting articles such as, for example, packaged integrated devices is a pick and place apparatus. In this type of apparatus, the articles are picked from a holding area and transported to an area such as a test site, or a mounting location. Typically, a suction cup is used, wherein the article is coupled to the suction cup using suction. Once the article is transported to the desired location, the suction to the suction cup is removed, thereby de-coupling or releasing the article from the suction cup.
A drawback to this approach is that the number of articles transported per unit time is dependent on the amount of time required to create the suction in the lines coupled to the suction cup when picking up an article. A further drawback is the amount of time required to restore the air pressure to the lines coupled to the suction cup when releasing the article, i.e., to remove the suction from the lines. The sum of these times represents a significant amount of the total time for transporting articles.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have a method and apparatus for transporting articles using suction to couple the article to a suction cup that eliminates the time associated with creating and subsequently removing suction in the lines coupled to the suction cup.